Visible veins on arm/shoulder

Hello. I am a 26 year old male and I have some pain in my right arm/shoulder and the veins are quite visible on this arm around my shoulder area. The veins are not raised or anything but they are still visible and my other arm is not like that. They also go on my chest a little bit too.

I saw my GP about my arm and he just said it was a muscle strain, but that was 2 months ago and it still hurts.


I worry I have a blood clot or something like that. The only reason I worry about that is because I was sick in the beginning of the year and I had to have a test where they injected blood into my arm after exposing the blood (it was my own blood) to radioactive isotopes and it was in this arm they did it. About a week after they did that test is when I noticed the veins, but they could have been visible there for a long time for all I know. I was in hospital a few times, the longest was for 8 days and because I wasn't mobile I was given heparin shots twice a day.

My arm is not swollen or red at all though.

I'm not sure if its anything to worry about or not, and the pain is not that bad but I was quite ill in the beginning of the year and I don't want to end up that sick ever again.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[Bhupinder Kaur, MD]

Hello,

Prominent visible veins is a sign of some venous obstruction.As it has occurred on your right arm,so chances of subclavian vein obstruction or thoracic outlet obstruction are there.This obstruction can be due to presence of thrombi or blood clots or by compression of the subclavian vein by the subclavius muscle and costoclavicular ligament.

Confirmation is done by investigations like blood count.PT,APTT,fibrinogen levels ,Protein C and S, duplex ultrasonography of chest,color Doppler,venography and chest MRI.Pls consult a vascul;ar surgeon for the confirmation of diagnosis.

Hope it helps.Take care and pls do keep me posted on how you are doing.

[Xandir]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I will check with my doc and see whats up. I hope its nothing bad. I fractured my shoulder quite badly when I was a child and I guess that could be causing the probs too (always had weird probs with my shoulder since then and its noticeably disfigured in some ways). The veins are not that noticeable today thankfully but my shoulder still hurts a bit.

Take care.